Tuesday, January 8, 2013

This Day in History: Jan 8, 1877: Crazy Horse fights last battle

On this day in 1877, Crazy Horse
and his warriors--outnumbered, low on ammunition and forced to use
outdated weapons to defend themselves--fight their final losing battle
against the U.S. Cavalry in Montana.

Six months earlier, in the Battle of Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse and his ally, Chief Sitting Bull,
led their combined forces of Sioux and Cheyenne to a stunning victory
over Lieutenant Colonel George Custer (1839-76) and his men. The Indians
were resisting the U.S. government's efforts to force them back to
their reservations. After Custer and over 200 of his soldiers were
killed in the conflict, later dubbed "Custer's Last Stand," the American
public wanted revenge. As a result, the U.S. Army launched a winter
campaign in 1876-77, led by General Nelson Miles (1839-1925), against
the remaining hostile Indians on the Northern Plains.

Combining military force with diplomatic overtures, Nelson convinced
many Indians to surrender and return to their reservations. Much to
Nelson's frustration, though, Sitting Bull refused to give in and fled
across the border to Canada, where he and his people remained for four
years before finally returning to the U.S. to surrender in 1881. Sitting
Bull died in 1890. Meanwhile, Crazy Horse and his band also refused to
surrender, even though they were suffering from illness and starvation.

On January 8, 1877, General Miles found Crazy Horse's camp along
Montana's Tongue River. U.S. soldiers opened fire with their big
wagon-mounted guns, driving the Indians from their warm tents out into a
raging blizzard. Crazy Horse and his warriors managed to regroup on a
ridge and return fire, but most of their ammunition was gone, and they
were reduced to fighting with bows and arrows. They managed to hold off
the soldiers long enough for the women and children to escape under
cover of the blinding blizzard before they turned to follow them.

Though he had escaped decisive defeat, Crazy Horse realized that
Miles and his well-equipped cavalry troops would eventually hunt down
and destroy his cold, hungry followers. On May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse led
approximately 1,100 Indians to the Red Cloud reservation near Nebraska's
Fort Robinson and surrendered. Five months later, a guard fatally
stabbed him after he allegedly resisted imprisonment by Indian
policemen.

In 1948, American sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski began work on the Crazy
Horse Memorial, a massive monument carved into a mountain in South Dakota. Still a work in progress, the monument will stand 641 feet high and 563 feet long when completed.